Evolution, climate change skeptics lose battle over Collier science textbooks

The Collier County School Board voted 3-2 on Monday to adopt a new batch of science textbooks after residents filed objections to more than a dozen of them. 

Four Collier residents opposed some of the textbooks, making arguments ranging from unbalanced views of evolution and climate change to inaccurate racial depictions of science experts.

Board Chairman Roy Terry and members Stephanie Lucarelli and Erick Carter voted in favor of adopting the disputed textbooks. Erika Donalds and Kelly Lichter voted against them.

The slate of instructional materials was unanimously approved for adoption at the May 8 board meeting. Since then, four people submitted 220 objections to content in 18 textbooks. The overall theme of the objections was a lack of balance and context in references to evolution and climate change and the treatment of those topics as fact rather than theory.

Evolution and natural selection are “a total indoctrination of liberal ideas,” wrote Collier parent Melissa Pind in her complaint. “Very disgusting and disappointing that this is included and no other viewpoint is even mentioned! What a shame that kids’ minds aren’t opened up to other possibilities.”

Keith Flaugh, co-director of the Florida Citizens’ Alliance, a conservative group that is suing the school district over social studies textbooks adopted last year, wrote in his objection that there are “many very credible scientists” who have proved the impossibility of evolution.

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Flaugh cited the following websites as sources for his pro-creationism stance: Godandscience.org; Creation.com; Christiananswers.net; and Conservapedia.com.

Michael Mogil, a meteorologist, objected to images of polar bears, which he wrote were “the ‘poster child’ of human-caused climate change proponents.” Repeated references to climate change, he said, “brainwashes” students.  

Several of Mogil’s complaints were aimed at images of science experts in the textbooks, which he said inaccurately represented the racial makeup of society’s expertise in science.

“Why would I wind up with four black males and no white males,” he asked board members Monday. “It just doesn’t look right.”

Mogil also cited one instance in which there was a lack of Hispanics.

Naples resident Joseph Doyle took aim at passages that addressed overpopulation, which he said is “an exaggerated, unproven concern.”

“This is a slippery slope implying the need to kill humans—  i.e. abortion, euthanasia,” he wrote.

Doyle and other objectors did not recommend alternative textbooks but said the district ought to pressure the textbooks’ publishers to make the appropriate fixes.

Many objections referred to minor details in the books, such as an image of children playing on the beach in 107-degree weather.

“From a safety angle, this is quite dangerous,” wrote Mogil, who submitted 144 objections. “From a weather angle, such temperatures at a U.S. beach are not likely.”

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Brandon Haught, a high school biology and environmental science teacher in Orange City and founding member of Florida Citizens for Science, a group focused on defending against attacks on science education, advised the board to be wary of the hundreds of objections filed.

Haught authored a book about the battle over the teaching of evolution in Florida classrooms.

The objectors’ strategy, he said, “is to overwhelm you by so many facts that it makes you think, ‘Oh, maybe there’s something to it.’ ”

“If you actually take a look at each individual fact you’ll find that they’re hollow,” he said. “They’re based on misinterpretations and wishful thinking and religion.”

Several people, including Haught and some board members, noted the unconstitutionality of teaching religion in public schools.

Donalds disagreed, arguing intelligent design has a place in science classrooms.

“The theory of intelligent design and the theory of evolution can be taught alongside each other without violating the Constitution,” she said.

Donalds and Lichter unsuccessfully put forth a motion to pull each book  objected to from the adoption slate to be reviewed individually.

“We need to push these publishers to get rid of the political agenda, especially with the climate change issue,” Lichter said. “It’s just shoved down the kids’ throats without any scientific background knowledge. It’s just really inappropriate.”

All three residents who filed objections and attended Monday’s meeting received 30 minutes to present their findings to the board, plus 10 minutes to reply to the district’s defense.

The meeting lasted five hours, the vast majority of which was spent hearing from objectors Mogil, Flaugh and Doyle, none of whom have children attending Collier public schools.

Legislation passed last year gave all Florida taxpayers the right to dispute materials in front of a school board. That privilege previously was reserved for parents only In Collier County.

The change in law came after Donalds' husband, state Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Naples, introduced House Bill 989, which states all materials must provide a “balanced viewpoint” on issues and expanded the objection process to all taxpayers.

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Critics of the bill said it would give skeptics of evolution and climate change a platform to influence how those subjects are taught in classrooms or whether they would be taught at all.

“In the extreme case, is that possible? Yes,” Donalds told the Daily News in March of last year. But some critics "are trying to read down a slippery slope that doesn’t exist.”

Flaugh, the objector who filed a lawsuit against the district last year, helped write the language for the bill.

The new slate of textbooks is expected to cost the district $1.7 million and will enter Collier classrooms at the start of the 2018-19 school year.

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